Yup, no power to the plug = no starting. As long as you have it apart, you might consider rebuilding it with a heavier gauge wire, like lamp cord, to provide better conductivity. I know you can remove the copper and wire from the clip without damaging the clip. I know we had a post or two on how to do this.

Marleysky wrote:Yup, no power to the plug = no starting. As long as you have it apart, you might consider rebuilding it with a heavier gauge wire, like lamp cord, to provide better conductivity. I know you can remove the copper and wire from the clip without damaging the clip. I know we had a post or two on how to do this.

If you want an extra clip or two, I've a couple I could send to you as backups.

Thanks for the offer Rene, but I actually found that I have "three" spares. I lost one of the contacts to the one I was going to fix, sometime between last night and this morning ... and my ridiculous OCD self looked all over for it... with a flashlight.. all around the house.. I even took my pants off.. I hate to blame the kitten.. but she takes things to amuse herself with. Granted.. I could keep a neater shop.. but you should see some of the things that she's brought upstairs.

I've calmed down now.. and only need to solder a pair of banana-plugs to the clip-leads of one of my spare clips and I'll be back in business.

Admin wrote:I must have at least 10 clips, more if you count the ones that are in unopened starting kits. LOL

For a quick strain relief, you could take the spring out of a ball point pen, wind it onto the wires and use some silicone, hot glue or something to secure it into the end.

I'm going with this set-up. Those aren't the solder-type banana-plugs.. but they worked fine for years.. so I just swapped them over to this clip's wires. The wire is a little heavier than the blue and red insulated wires. It doesn't look like OEM Cox wire.. so I might have rewired-it years ago. I honestly can't remember.

It was in the best overall condition between these three.. (I hate electrical tape..)

The original COX clip wire insulation tends to age under the chemical impact of nitro, and crack, leaving the copper cord uninsulated. I also have a few that could not stand the test of the time so the best thing is replace the original wires with a heavier one with thicker insulation.

The clips are large and never worked for me on 010 size engines, and even on 020 they are a bit unstable. But they are fine on 049 and maybe 090 as well.

balogh wrote:The original COX clip wire insulation tend to age with time and chemical impact by nitro, and break, leaving the copper cord uninsulated. I also have a few that could not stand the test of the time so the best thing is replace the wires with a heavier one that also has higher conductivity.

I have some high-quality wire that I got from a previous job where we manufactured speed-controllers. The sizes range from 18AWG to 10AWG.. and super-flexible.

This is just "some" of the insulated wire in my stock..

Radio Shack used to sell small spools of 1C 22AWG... you can see them at the bottom of the photo in black, red and green along with a spool of 2C black/white 22AWG.

I used to build my own speaker-cabinets and always had wire on hand.. also for automotive-repairs.. etc. I have a great selection of fuses, 6/12V lamps... lamp-holders... I hope someone gets all this crap when I buy the farm..

Thought I'd "close the door" here by reporting that the alternate clip worked very well. I'd had some problems running some recently assembled engines in the last few days.. and between "this", a better fuel-delivery and better sealing of my reedies backplates; I'm back in the game.